"My, how formal an invitation, captain. I suppose you had in mind sitting and flipping back a few trank pills."
Joe looked at her. "I don't believe I've had a trank in the past twenty years, Miss Haer. Even as a boy, I didn't particularly take to having my senses dulled with drug-induced pleasure."
Some of her fury was abating, but she was still critical of the professional mercenary. Her eyes went up and down his uniform in scorn. "You seem to make pretenses of being cultivated, captain. Then why your chosen profession?"
He'd had the answer to that for long years. He said now, simply, "I told you I was born a Lower. Given that, little counts until I fight my way out of it. Had I been born in a feudalist society, I would have attempted to batter myself into the nobility. Under classical capitalism, I would have done my utmost to accumulate a fortune, enough to reach an effective position in society. Now, under People's Capitalism ..."
She snorted, "Industrial Feudalism would be the better term."
"... I realize I can't even start to fulfill myself until I am a member of the Upper caste."
Her eyes had narrowed, and the anger was largely gone. "But you chose the military field in which to better yourself?"
"Government propaganda to the contrary, it is practically impossible to raise yourself in other fields. I didn't build this world, possibly I don't even approve of it, but since I'm in it I have no recourse but to follow its rules."
Her eyebrows arched. "Why not try to change the rules?"
Joe blinked at her.